Electronics devices such as notebook and laptop computers have become increasingly compact and portable and, as a result, increasingly vulnerable to unauthorized use, theft or loss. This is because these portable computers are small, expensive and may contain very valuable information.
Many computers, especially portable computers, have been secured from unauthorized use, theft or loss by mechanisms based on principles of prevention, deterrence or recovery. Prevention mechanisms may include physical locking devices which lock portable computers to docking stations. Deterrence mechanisms may include myriad alarm systems which employ various deterrence methods, including sound and visual alarms to deter an unauthorized person or a thief from stealing the portable computers. Recovery mechanisms may include various systems for providing automatic disabling of portable computers and/or for locating and tracking stolen portable computers for recovery via existing radio communication infrastructures or existing cellular network infrastructures.
One typical example of computer tracking systems for locating stolen computers is the use of a software (location tracking program) installed to instruct the computer to call a third party monitoring service at regular intervals. When the computer calls the monitoring service, the computer establishes a data link and transmits data to the monitoring service that identifies the computer. When the monitoring service receives a call from the user's computer, the monitoring service is able to determine the location of the computer by utilizing Caller ID. The location of the computer may then be forwarded to a law enforcement agency so that the lost or stolen computer can be retrieved by the law enforcement agency.
Alternatively, the location tracking program may also be installed to identify if an e-mail is being sent from the lost or stolen computer and compare a sender address to a predetermined owner address. If the sender address matches the owner address, the e-mail is sent unimpeded. However, if the sender address does not match with the sender address, then the e-mail is redirected to a third party such as a law enforcement agency to notify that the computer may have been stolen. However, such location tracking systems are not optimal because a third party monitoring service is required.
Another example location tracking systems are known as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems which are available to uniquely identify and track devices equipped with RFID tags as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,232,870 for Applications For Radio Frequency Identification Systems issued to Garber et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,100,804 for Radio Frequency Identification System issued to Brady et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,134 for Inventory System Using Articles With RFID Tags issued to Bowers et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,838,253 for Radio Frequency Identification Label issued to Wurz et al. A typical RFID tag (also known as transponder) consists of a semiconductor chip having RF circuits, control logic, memory and an antenna (and a battery in the case of active tags) mounted to a substrate for providing remote identification. However, such RFID systems require dedicated wireless communications, and contain no general wireless data communications capabilities. Another drawback is that the user has purchase the RFID tags, the tag reader, and setup the environment specifically for the RFID service. RFID tags can also be cost prohibitive as each RFID tag can vary from 50 cents to $150 based on the desired capabilities.
Accordingly, there is a need for a new type of asset security and wireless tracking system for electronic devices such as portable computers that can be easily and effectively implemented with an industry standard communications wireless technology such as Bluetooth™ to provide access control, tracking and security services of varying complexity without any additional hardware overheads.